Recent research and popular discourse offers evidence of a significant number of people in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world that self-identify as both "spiritual" and "not religious." Based on the conventional religious paradigm that has previously been supported by western scholarship, spirituality is a factor of religious involvement and such an identity combination should be rare in societies where people overwhelmingly participate in church activities. However, these new empirical data challenge this supposition. This quandary has renewed an interest among academics in understanding the relationship between spirituality and religion and in identifying mechanisms that have an impact on variance on particular combinations of the two. This dissertation explores the antecedent nature of certain combinations of structural conditions across nation states in association with substantial aggregations of "spiritual but not religious" populations in an effort to offer empirical evidence that can be used to support theoretical arguments about the cross-national variation of this population. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative methods and data from 32 nation states, this analysis explores the necessity and sufficiency of individual demographic and economic conditions, church and state relations, and popular attitudes about church involvement in politics while examining the consistency of their presence in paths that lead to "spiritual non-religious" identification. The results suggest that in the midst of an atmosphere of attitudes that oppose the involvement of religious organizations in politics that is related to the size of the institutional religious canopy, a nation's structural economic forces may be driving the variance in religious identification that is associated with spiritual identification. However, a full understanding of this relationship can only be gained through combining tests offered in this work with future qualitative cross-national studies that also consider subjective meaning.

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The first part deals with the concept of virtue ethics in the view of Summa theologica. Its basis is acquired from classical philosophy of ancient scholars. Firstly, it is necessary to describe Plato's and Aristoteles systematical approach to virtues. Plato's approach is parallel with the concept of the state. Aristotle's has a system divided into rational and moral virtues, which is a small entanglement of this topic. The last systematical approach in ancient times takes Stoic's way with dualistic conception of realty and human inside, which is an approach with no ground. Thomas Aquinas continues the system of Plato's and Aristotle's and adds the theory of cardinal and supernatural virtues. The cardinal virtues are rooted in humans, through their habits, so the key question then being human's habits, disposition, and adequacy in connection with their nature. Subsequently, the virtues are an essential part of human nature or personality. The psychology deals with the topic of virtues in the context of personality psychology, especially, in the background of inner quality or traits. Recently, virtues in the psychology are still open to question and are a huge challenge.

Präsentiert werden drei Studien zum Thema Prädiktion von Leistung. In Studie 1 wurde die Prädiktion von Studienerfolg nicht nur mit Persönlichkeitsmaßen auf Facettenebene sowohl von Fremd- als auch Selbst-Ratings untersucht, sondern auch der Einfluss von faking auf die Kriteriumsvalidität. Ergebnisse zeigten, dass Fremd- über Selbst-Ratings und Intelligenz hinaus Studienerfolg prädizieren. Auch wurde gezeigt, dass Faking die Kriteriumsvaliditäten auf Facettenebene in unterschiedlicher Weise beeinflusst. Studie 2 untersuchte den Einfluss der unterschiedlichen Abstraktionsebene von Prädiktor und Kriterium auf die Kriteriumsvalidität. Dazu wurden Leistungsmotivationsskalen sowohl in einer Mathe-spezifischen Formulierung als auch in einer globalen Formulierung Schülern vorgegeben. Diese Skalen dienten dann als Prädiktoren für Noten in Mathe, Physik und Deutsch. Ergebnisse einer Varianzzerlegung mit MTMM zeigten, dass die Mathe-spezifischen Skalen durchgehend ein Plus an Varianz enthalten, welches unabhängig ist von der Varianz aufgrund der einzelnen Motivationskonstrukte. Folglich messen domänen-spezifische Skalen entweder ein engeres Konstrukt von Leistungsmotivation oder, eher, ein zusätzliches Konstrukt. Das Korrelationsmuster der domänen-spezifischen Varianz mit den drei untersuchten Noten legt nahe, dass es sich bei diesem zusätzlichen Konstrukt um Selbstkonzept handelt. Studie 3 untersuchte die Konstruktvalidität der Big 5 und möglicher higher-order factors nach Kontrolle von möglichen Biases innerhalb des CTCM-1 Ansatzes mit Selbst- und Fremdratings. Ergebnisse zeigten, dass bias-bereinigte Big 5 Maße die Annahme eines higher-order factors wenig plausibel machen. Darüber hinaus konnte ein solcher potentieller Faktor nicht theoriekonform die positive Eigenschaft Intelligenz prädizieren. Insgesamt verdeutlicht dies die Problematik des Einflusses von unterschiedlichen Quellen und Verzerrungen auf die Kriteriumsvalidität von häufig eingesetzten Persönlichkeitsmaßen. / Presented are 3 studies about the prediction of performance. Study 1 analyzes the prediction of academic performance by use of self-ratings, other-ratings and faked-ratings of personality measures not only on domain level but also on facet level. Result showed that other-ratings yield incremental validity above and beyond self-ratings and intelligence. Moreover, against prior findings for domain-level, faking does influence criterion validity on facet-level, with the influence not being uniform in direction. Study 2 analyzed the influence of different levels of abstraction of predictor and criterion in the realm of achievement motivation. For that, various achievement motivation scales were administered both in a global and a math-specific wording. These scales later on served as predictor for grades in math, physics and German. By modeling this data in a MTMM model different sources of variance could be disentangled. Results showed that math-specific scales are the better predictors. More so, these domain-specific scales have uniformly an increase in variance regardless of the positive or negative valence of the various achievement motivation scales. This leads to the conclusion that math-domain-specific scales either measure a narrower construct or, more probable, they tap an additional construct. This is backed by the uniform positive additional variance. Moreover, test-criterion correlation-pattern between the math-domain-specific variance and the three different grades makes it plausible that the additional construct tapped in these scales is self-concept. Study 3 analyzed the construct-validity of personality’s Big 5 and their possible higher order factor after controlling for singular rater biases using a newly developed CTCM-1 approach. Results showed that these bias free Big 5 make the assumption of one higher order factor implausible. Moreover, such a factor would not uniformly predict intelligence as is claimed by advocates of this factor.